John will be DJing on Saturday July 2nd at the A Drink For Kids benefit at Hattie's Hat in Ballard. Proceeds raised from Pyramid Brewing Company beers and Medoyeff vodka drinks will go to support the Vera Project, hosting the evening will be Ben London.

Matthew Stadler, author, editor and publisher of John's little book of tweets Electric Aphorisms, will be hosting an event of cooking, singing, and conversation on July 6 at the Sorrento Hotel in Seattle. This will conclude his 12-city tour through the States to present his new novel, Chloe Jarren’s La Cucaracha. For his stop in Seattle he managed to secure John Roderick's services as guest musician and interlocutor. And Michael Hebb will present his creation of the Mexican classic dish carne en su jugo, "meat in its own juice."
For more information and to buy tickets, visit Publication Studio's website. This event is limited seating and tout compris: food, drink, service, and a special limited edition of Stadler's book are all included in the ticket price.

John recently collaborated with the nice folks from Seattle's very own BOAT on their new album, Dress Like your Idols - part of the album cover might look familiar to you. You can now download John's duet with BOAT singer D.Crane from SeattleWeekly Reverb. About working with the band, John says, "I love working with BOAT because they are relentlessly upbeat and super-duper positive and fun, and like all the best upbeat, positive music there is, at its core, a howling chasm of unmitigated horror more disturbing than the scariest Scandanavian mythology made real."

John will be one of the guests at this year's MaxFunCon, a gathering devoted to things and people that are awesome. MaxFunCon will take place at Lake Arrowhead, CA, from June 10 to 12, 2011, and will also feature the talents of John Hodgman, Paul Feig, and the crew of You Look Nice Today, among many others. For more information, please visit MaxFunCon.com.

John and Eric recently went into the studio with musician Shelby Earl to work on her upcoming debut album. Shelby is a self-described singer, songwriter, lover, pal from Seattle — and a lovely lady to boot, who happily agreed to share with us what it was like working with Two Winters in the studio.

"I started making Burn The Boats just over a year ago. A few months into the process I met up with Roderick and played him rough mixes of the basic tracks I'd done with the help of some friends (members of SHIM, the Maldives, some former Fleet Foxes, and others). At that stage there wasn't really an official 'producer' involved, but Ben Kersten (Grand Archives' producer) engineered the early sessions and had done a great job capturing the sounds. Roderick was excited about the songs at that point, but there was a lot of work still to be done. He knew I was feeling a little lost and he said ‘you're making a killer rock record and I'd love to help you finish it as a sort of 'creative advisor'.’ We didn't really know what that would look like, but we scheduled a few days with Eric Corson at his home studio, with the idea that we'd at least work on some lead vocals and maybe try some overdubs. That first session was totally stellar! It was clear from the get-go that the three of us were a great team and that John in 'producer' role was working really well, so we decided to officially define it as such from then on. » Read more.